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Thyroid Cancer Treatment (PDQ®)

Cellular Classification of Thyroid Cancer

Cell type is an important determinant of prognosis in thyroid cancer. There
are four main varieties of thyroid cancer (although, for clinical management of
the patient, thyroid cancer is generally divided into two categories: well differentiated or
poorly differentiated):[1]

Papillary carcinoma.

Papillary/follicular carcinoma.

Follicular carcinoma.

Hürthle cell carcinoma, a variant of follicular carcinoma with a poorer prognosis.[2,3]

Medullary carcinoma.

Anaplastic carcinoma.

Small cell carcinoma.

Giant cell carcinoma.

Others.

Lymphoma.

Sarcoma.

Carcinosarcoma.

A definition for each major type can be found under stage information.